GATE GG Syllabus and Marks Distribution

Choose Geology or Geophysics during the application. Both share Part A but have different Part B syllabi. The optional sections have separate ranks and qualifying marks; do not assume that one overall GG closing score describes both routes.

Geology and Geophysics Unit-wise Syllabus

Common Section

• This section includes various introductory topics related to geology and geophysics. Introduction to Earth and planetary systems: Terrestrial planets and moons of the solar system; Concept of isostasy, Internal structure of Earth – elasticity, body and surface waves, propagation of body waves in the Earth’s interior; Heat flow within the Earth; Gravitational field of the Earth; Continental and oceanic crust – composition, structure and thickness.
• Plate Tectonics: Type of plate boundaries; Plate motions and driving mechanisms; Processes at plate boundaries - volcanism, seismicity, orogenesis, sea-floor spreading and magnetic anomalies and paleomagnetism, formation of back-arc basins; Continental rifting, mantle plumes, hotspots; Numerical problems related to plate motions.
• Earth surface processes: Landforms created by hillslopes, rivers, wind, glaciers, oceans, and volcanoes.
• Basic structural geology : Mohr’s circle, stress, strain, and material response; Brittle and ductile deformation; Nomenclature and classification of folds and faults.
• Mineralogy: Silicate crystal structure, physical and chemical properties of common rock-forming minerals.
• Common Igneous: Sedimentary, and metamorphic-rocks: composition, structure, and formation processes.
• Stratigraphy and Geological time scale : R elative and absolute time, Half -life, decay constant, radioactive equilibrium, stratigraphic principles, and major stratigraphic divisions of India ; Major metallic ores, coal and petroleum resources of India.
• Introduction to remote sensing : Energy sources and radiation principles, atmospheric absorption, interaction of energy with Earth’s surface; Engineering properties of rocks and soils ; Natural hazards (landslide, volcanic, seismogenic, coastal) and mitigation; Principles of climate change;
• Elements of hydrogeology : Principles and applications of gravity, magnetic, electrical, electromagnetic, seismic, and radiometric methods of prospecting for oil, mineral, and groundwater.

Advanced topics in Geology

• Geomorphology: Basic geomorphic concepts, Geomorphic processes, and agents; Development and evolution of landforms in continental and oceanic settings; Landscape evolution in response to tectonics, climate, and base - level change. Quaternary geomorphology.
• Structural Geology: Stress and strain analysis, deformation mechanisms, primary and secondary structures; Geometry and genesis of planar and linear structures (bedding, cleavage, schistosity, lineation); Folds, faults, joints, and unconformities; Shear zones, thrusts, and superposed folding; Geological maps -interpretation, measurements, and numerical analysis; Stereographic projection.
• Crystallography and Mineralogy: Elements of crystal symmetry, form, and twinning; Crystallographic projections; Classification of minerals, physical and optical properties of rock -forming minerals; Mineral nucleation; Mineral chemistry (major, trace, and rare earth elements), cation re-calculations.
• Geochemistry: Nucleosynthesis and cosmic abundance of elements; Classification and components of meteorites; Geochemical affinities and distribution of major, minor and trace elements in crust, mantle, and core; Planetary differentiation and geochemical evolution of the earth; Radiogenic (long-lived) isotopic evolution (Rb- Sr, Sm-Nd, U-Th-Pb) of the crust and the mantle, mantle reservoirs; Stable isotope geochemistry (H, O, C), isotope fractionation; geochemical cycles; Elements of high -temperature and low -temperature geochemical thermodynamics; Geochemical and isotopic (C -O, Sr isotopes) composition of river water, groundwater and
• seawater, residence time, and water -rock interaction; Principles of environmental geochemistry (pH, Salinity, TDS, BOD, COD).
• Igneous Petrology: Classification and textures of common igneous rocks; Mantle melting; Magmatic differentiation; Role of major, trace, and rare earth elements in igneous petrogenesis; Magma evolution, modeling crystallization and melting processes, plate margin volcanism; Intra-plate volcanism and large igneous provinces.
• Thermodynamics: Equilibrium, Gibbs free energy; enthalpy, entropy, energy, Clapeyron Equation, Mineral stability and Phase equilibria, Schreinmakers rules; Phase rule; Phase diagrams, Activity-composition; Mineral solid solutions; Enthalpy and entropy of magma crystallization, Binary and ternary phase diagrams in igneous systems; Chemical speciation and equilibrium in natural waters, solubility and precipitation of minerals - saturation index calculations, Eh-pH diagrams and redox equilibria.
• Sedimentology: Texture, structure, sedimentary processes, physical principles related to fluid flow; Statistical analysis in sedimentology; Petrology of common sedimentary rocks; Sedimentary facies and environments, cyclicities in sedimentary succession; Provenance and basin analysis.
• Metamorphic Petrology: Structures and textures of metamorphic rocks; Extreme metamorphism; Metamorphic facies and grades; Paired metamorphic belts; Mineral reactions and chemographic projections; Metamorphism of pelitic, mafic and impure carbonate rocks; role of bulk compositions and fluids in metamorphism; Thermobarometry; Timing of metamorphism.
• Paleontology: Diversity of life through time, mass extinctions - causes and effects; Taphonomy - processes of fossilization. functional morphology of invertebrates (bivalves, brachiopods, gastropods, echinoids, ammonites) and microfossils - (foraminifera, Ostracoda, conodonts, bryozoa); Statistical analysis of morphology; Vertebrate paleontology. Basic concepts of paleoecology; Fossils and paleoenvironments.
• Stratigraphy: Principles of stratigraphy, concepts of correlation and their applications in Indian stratigraphy; Quantitative Lithostratigraphy, biostratigraphy, and chronostratigraphy - statistical and probabilistic approaches; Isotope stratigraphy; Principles of sequence stratigraphy and applications; Boundary problems in Indian stratigraphy.
• Resource Geology: Ore-mineralogy; Ore forming processes - magmatic, hydrothermal, sedimentary, supergene, and metamorphogenic ores; Fluid inclusions in ore genesis; Coal and petroleum geology; Marine mineral resources; Prospecting and exploration of economic mineral deposits - sampling, ore reserve estimation, geostatistics, and mining methods ; Distribution of strategic, essential, and critical minerals and fossil fuel deposits in India.
• Engineering Geology: Physico-mechanical properties of rocks and soils; rock index tests; Rock failure criteria (Mohr-Coulomb, Griffith, and Hoek -Brown criteria); Shear strength of rock discontinuities; Rock mass classifications (RMR and Q Systems); in -situ stresses; Geological factors in the construction of engineering structures including dams, tunnels, and excavation sites; Analysis of slope stability.
• Hydrogeology: Porosity and permeability; Groundwater storage and aquifer properties; Darcy’s law; Hydraulic conductivity and groundwater flow dynamics; Groundwater exploration, well hydraulics.
• Remote Sensing: EM spectrum, multispectral remote sensing in visible, infrared, thermal IR and microwave regions including hyperspectral; Digital processing of satellite images. GIS – basic concepts, raster and vector mode operations; Applications of remote sensing tools and techniques in geology.

Advanced topics in Geophysics

• Heat flow: Elements of conduction and convection within the mantle and the core, Half-space cooling, calculation of simple geotherms, geothermal gradient, equilibrium geotherms, thermal models in plate tectonics, adiabat, and melting in the mantle.
• Geodesy: Gravitational Field of the Earth; Clairaut’s theorem, size and shape of Earth; Geoid; Ellipsoid; Geodetic Reference Systems; Datum; GPS.
• Seismology and Interior of the Earth: Variation of density, velocity, pressure, temperature, electrical and magnetic properties of the Earth ; Conservation laws, Newton’s law of viscosity, elements of laminar and turbulent flow; Elements of elasticity theory - stress and strain tensors, Generalized Hooke’s Law; Body and Surface Waves; Rotational, dilatational, irrotational, and equivoluminal wave s; Reflection and refraction of elastic waves; Inhomogeneous and evanescent waves and bounded waves; Eikonal Equation and Ray theory; Wave propagation in elastic media, Seismic Tomography.
• Earthquake Seismology: Earthquakes-causes and measurements, magnitude and intensity, focal mechanisms; Earthquake quantification, source characteristics, seismotectonics and seismic hazards; Digital seismographs, Earthquake statistics, quantifying earthquake source from seismological data ; Uniqueness Theorem, Representation Theorems of correlation and convolution type, Reciprocity.
• Potential and Time Varying Fields: Scalar and vector potential fields; Laplace, Maxwell and Helmholtz equations for solution of different types of boundary value problems in Cartesian, cylindrical, and spherical polar coordinates; Green’s theorem; Image theory; integral equations in potential and time-varying field theory.
• Gravity: The earth as a planet; Absolute and relative gravity measurements; The various corrections for gravity data reduction – free air, Bouguer and isostatic anomalies; density estimates of rocks; Regional and residual gravity separation; Principle of equivalent stratum; Upward and downward continuation; Wavelength filtering; Gravity anomalies and their interpretation – anomalies due to geometrical and irregular shaped bodies, depth rules, calculation of mass.
• Magnetic Methods: Geomagnetic field, paleomagnetism; Inclination, declination; Magnetic induction equation – convection, diffusion, Ohm’s law for a moving conductor, frozen flux theorem, magnetic fields of planets in the Solar System, Geodynamo and origin of Earth’s Magnetic field, magnetic susceptibility of rocks and measurements; Various corrections applied to magnetic data, IGRF, Poisson’s relation of gravity and magnetic potential field, upward and downward continuation, magnetic anomalies due to geometrical and irregular shaped bodies; Interpretation of processed magnetic anomaly data; Derivative, analytic signal and Euler Depth Solutions.
• Electrical Methods: Conduction of electricity through rocks, electrical conductivities of metals, non-metals, rock- forming minerals and different rocks, concepts of D.C. resistivity measurement and depth of investigation; Apparent Resistivity and Apparent Chargeability, Theo ry of Reciprocity, Sounding and Profiling, Various electrode arrangements, application of linear filter theory, Sounding curves over multi-layered earth, interpretation of resistivity field data, Principles of equivalence and suppression.
• Electromagnetic Methods: Geo-electromagnetic spectrum; Biot Savart’s Law; Maxwell’s Equation, Helmholtz Equation, Basic concept of EM induction in the earth, Skin -depth, elliptic polarization, in-phase and quadrature components, phasor diagrams; Response function and respo nse parameters; Measurements in different source receiver configurations; Earth’s natural electromagnetic methods - tellurics, geomagnetic depth sounding and magnetotellurics; Electromagnetic profiling and Sounding, Time domain EM method; EM scale modelling, processing of EM data and interpretation; Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) Methods; Effect of conducting overburden.
• Seismic Methods: Elastic properties of earth materials; Reflection, refraction, generation, and propagation of elastic waves, velocity – depth models, seismic noise and noise profile analysis, processing, and interpretation; CDP stacking charts, binning, filtering, static and dynamic corrections, Digital seismic data processing, seismic deconvolution and migration methods, attribute analysis, bright and dim spots, seismic stratigraphy, high - resolution seismics, VSP, AVO, multi -component seismics, and seismic interferomet ry; Kirchhoff migration, Time Reversal, Time -Reversal imaging, Reverse -Time Migration; Representation theorem of cross -correlation
• and convolution type.
• Reservoir Geophysics: Rock Physics and Petrophysics, Failure Criteria, stress concentration, Linear elasticity fracture mechanics, Elastic -Plastic Fracture mechanics; Griffith’s criterion, dynamic fracture mechanics; Lithology and Porosity Estimation; Saturation and Permeability Estimation; application of borehole geophysics in groundwater, mineral, and oil exploration.
• Geophysical Signal Processing: Sampling theorem, Nyquist frequency, aliasing, Fourier series, periodic waveform, Fourier and Hilbert transform, Z -transform and wavelet transform; power spectrum, delta function, auto-correlation, cross-correlation, convolution, deconvolution, principles o f digital filters, windows, poles, and zeros, Basics of Time-frequency analysis.
• Geophysical Well Logging: Principles and techniques of geophysical well -logging, SP, resistivity, induction, gamma ray, neutron, density, sonic, temperature, dip meter, caliper, nuclear magnetic resonance- longitudinal and transverse relaxation, CPMG sequence, porosity characterization, cement bond logging, micro-logs, Quantitative evaluation of formations from well logs.
• Geophysical Inversion: Basic concepts of forward and inverse problems, Ill -posedness of inverse problems, condition number, non -uniqueness and stability of solutions; L1, L2, and Lp norms, overdetermined, underdetermined and mixed determined inverse problems, quasi -linear and non -linear methods including Tikhonov’s regularization method, Singular Value Decomposition, Backus-Gilbert method, simulated annealing, genetic algorithms, swarm intelligence, Statistics of misfit and likelihood, Random Variables and Processes, Probability distribution functions - Gaussian, Poissonian , log -normal; Spatial analysis, Hypothesis testing ; Bayesian construction of posterior probabilities, sparsity promoting L1 optimization ; Ambiguity and uncertainty in geophysical interpretation; PDE constrained optimization, Adjoint-state method.

General Aptitude Syllabus

General Aptitude contributes 15 marks within the 100-mark paper. It is not an additional paper that can be left out when choosing the technical sections.

Chapter-wise Weightage and Important Topics

The marks split above is fixed at section level. IIT Madras has not assigned a guaranteed number of marks to each chapter of Geology and Geophysics. A topic may appear in one year and receive fewer questions in another; a past-paper count is not an official 2027 weightage.

For a chapter-weightage comparison, record the year, paper code, session, question number and marks of each matching question. Keep a combined question under one main topic or label the overlap explicitly; counting it twice inflates the total. GATE previous-year question papers can be used for this topic-by-topic practice.

Question Types and Negative Marking

The paper uses one-mark and two-mark questions. The number of MCQ, MSQ and NAT questions is not a fixed chapter-wise quota. In an MSQ, selecting one correct option is not enough when the correct answer contains two options.

Using the 2027 Syllabus for Preparation

Prepare the common earth-science foundations before the selected advanced section. Do not replace geophysics preparation with only geological definitions: its syllabus includes field equations, waves and quantitative interpretation.

Match each exercise to the current unit list. A previous-year paper may use an older scope or section code. When a current topic has no matching older question, practise that concept separately rather than deleting it from the plan. The GATE preparation plan covers full-paper practice and revision alongside topic study.

1. Unit and Topic Reference
2. Sections and Marks

1. Mathematics and General Aptitude
2. Practice and Marking Reference